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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Jakarta Post reports on Aceh's enforcement of Sharia

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A colleague working in
Southeast Asia assures me that the newest attempt by the government to enforce
Sharia law will be pushed down when the Ministry of Home Affairs refuses to
approve the mandate. It stillsaddens me
on so many levels.All the things that
need to still be done for the province are going to be derailed by a global
audience who is mostly scratching its head and wondering why it should
contribute any more resources to a region determined to shoot itself in the
foot at every opportunity.

Without much fanfare, the Aceh provincial
administration and legislative council have approved the Qanun Jinayat
(behavior-governing bylaw) that obliges every Muslim and non-Muslim in Aceh to follow
sharia, the Islamic legal code.
The Qanun Jinayat was approved by the legislative council on Dec. 13 and signed
by Governor Zaini Abdullah.

Saleh said that the newly approved qanun
stipulated that all violators of sharia would be tried under Islamic law
regardless of their religion.
Violations . . . include drinking liquor, khalwat (affectionate contact between
an unmarried couple), and not wearing headscarf or wearing tight pants by
women.
Anyone found drinking alcohol or breaching the codes on moral behavior, whether
residents or visitors to Aceh, could face between six and nine lashes of the cane.
On Wednesday, the Aceh sharia police stopped motorists but let non-Muslim women
go after advising them to wear a headscarf. Three violations of the dress code
could lead to nine lashes.
Saleh argued that the passing of the qanun was based on the principle of justice for all as
Muslims would feel they were being treated unfairly if non-Muslim violators
were not tried under the same law for the same violations.
Legal observer and social scientist at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh,
Saifuddin Bantasyam, said that although he had not yet read the Qanun Jinayat
in detail, he thought that it would be awkward if Islamic law was applied to
non-Muslims regardless of whether the violation was categorized as a sharia
violation.

Key articles in the Qanun Jinayat
1. The sharia authorities
will have the power to arrest suspected violators, and confiscate and conduct
raids on their property, based on preliminary evidence. 2. The authorities will have
the power to detain a violator for up to 30 days prior to trial. This detention
can be extended by another 30 days. 3. A suspect has the right to
be defended by a lawyer.4. Non-Muslim or military
suspects will be tried in a sharia court unless the violation is covered by the
Criminal Code (KUHP) or by the Military Code respectively. 5. Even if the sharia court
acquits a defendant, he or she will be required to undergo rehabilitation. 6. Only one appeal may be
filed with the sharia court. 7. Prison terms are for up to
a maximum of 40 months.8. Caning up to a maximum to
40 lashes. 9. Fines up to a maximum of
800 grams of gold.

Source: Aceh provincial administration

My colleague adds, “I think
that we need to work on a strategy for the 10th anniversary of the tsunami this
year and of the MoU next year. These are opportunities for bringing back
interest and attention to Aceh. And to get the Acehnese to understand that if
they want to keep that attention then they have to lose the ridiculous
parochialism they are falling into.”

As I was pondering whether
I could even return to Aceh under these condition, I remembered philosopher
Bertrand Russell’s Portraits from Memoryin which there is a section called "Why I am Not
a Communist."

As
you read these excerpts, substitute “political Islam” for Communism, and your
favorite Acehnese politician for Stalin and Marx.

“In relation to any political doctrine there
are two questions to be asked:

(1) Are its theoretical tenets true?

(2) Is its practical policy likely to increase human happiness?

For my part, I think the theoretical tenets
of Communism are false, and I think its practical maxims are such as to produce
an immeasurable increase of human misery.

. . . I am completely at a loss to understand
how it came about that some people who are both humane and intelligent could
find something to admire in the vast slave camp produced by Stalin.

. . . But my objections to modern Communism go
deeper than my objections to Marx. It is the abandonment of democracy that I
find particularly disastrous. A minority resting its powers upon the activities of secret police is
bound to be cruel, oppressive and obscuarantist. The dangers of the
irresponsible power came to be generally recognized during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, but those who have forgotten all that was painfully
learnt during the days of absolute monarchy have gone back to what was worst in
the middle ages under the curious delusion that they were in the vanguard of
progress.

. . . In most of the
countries of Asia, there is abject poverty which the West ought to alleviate as
far as it lies in its power to do so. There is also a great bitterness which
was caused by the centuries of European insolent domination in Asia. This ought
to be dealt with by a combination of patient tact with dramatic announcements
renouncing such relics of white domination as survive in Asia. . . . “

The basic claim of
political Islam—that there exists a commonly agreed corpus of Islam that is
universally accepted-- is false, and can be clearly seen in Indonesia with its
plurality of faiths and competing orthodoxies. The body of Islamic law can’t
provide relevance and answers to the problems of modern governance, especially
in Aceh province. Is this law liable to increase human happiness?The policies derived from these ideas are at
best problematic.And the nonchalant
refusal to even consider the dangers of absolute power and its abuse is incredibly
frightening.

The 18th century
Indian Islamic Scholar Sha Wali’s theory of the Caliphate addresses the problem
of the abuse of power by deeming it away by administrative fiat—“we will choose
a just caliph,” or “the jurist’s council is by definition just because he knows
the law.”The whole idea of human frailties
and power concentrated in the hands of the few being dangerous is simply deemed
away.This seems terribly naïve and
short-sighted, particularly in light of the very long history of unjust secular
rulers against which the whole Islamist ideology is aimed.

And then there are those
citizens of Aceh who, as Russell notes, have apparently forgotten “all that was
too painfully learned” under the various tyrannies of both colonial powers and,
more recently, Indonesia itself.

As with Communism, Islam
does not offer a solution to the constant presence of the potential for the
abuse of power. And this refusal to learn from the past is happening under the
delusion that Aceh is “searching for cultural authenticity.”This is surprising, and certainly not
convincing. We know what those who have
promulgate this law are searching for: votes based on fear and personal wealth
based on repression.Nothing really
moral, or Muslim, about that.

Some comments appearing below the Jakarta Post article:

·Title is MISLEADING. Aceh cannot enforce sharia in full.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has 60 days to check whether regulations are in
line with the constitution.

·the Qur'an was man made, there was no Qur'an during the
life time of Muhammad, read the Bukhari hadith, it was codified or made into a
book by caliph Uthman who was not a prophet

·there is no original Qur'an, even the one codified by
Uthman in existence in the world, so don't say that the current Qur'an has
never been changed

·Its very regret that Aceh turned to Taliban, Boko Haram
likeness ruling province. I believe that in the next time Aceh will be base of
terrorist.

·Is this PTSD from the Tsunami? Or are the people by
nature, insane?

·women being fined for not wearing the hijab or wearing
tight jeans is absurd. . .

·Treating women equally is a sign of civility. Mentally
they are as intelligent so why subjugate them? The clothes they wear, how they
ride scooters etc. is irrelevant. The clowns on dresses aren't trying to
respect women, they are controlling them. Let one women live in Aceh and Saudi
and then Australia, Europe or the US and then ask where she prefers.

·men and women may not be equal, but neither is superior,
men and women complement each other, to say otherwise is just idiotic. Sharia
seems to be more about control does it not, PS I am male and my wife (indo) is
smarter than me.

No type of fundamentalism is good. I hope Aceh wakes up in time.

[thanks to Dr Efraim Afsah of the University of Copenhagen for an enlightening lecture on the topic of political Islam.]

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About

Thoughts, updates, musings and rants about my work in rural Aceh Province, Indonesia as founder, President, and sometimes barn builder, field clearer and goat delivery girl, of a non-profit foundation established to help rebuild the lives and futures of the survivors of the 2004 tsunami and recently ended civil conflict.

Important links and websites

Map of Aceh

JMD, the local NGO that we support, implements programs throughout the province, with an emphasis on disaster and conflict-affected areas such as the west coast and the northern and rural sistricts. We assisted Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Aceh Timur in 2009 and are currently seeking ways in which we can continue to help those Rohingya still in Mayanmar and those who seek refuge in neighboring countries.

JMD's Projects in Aceh

Cocoa Rules!!

JMD helps conflict-affected farmers living on the buffer of the rainforest in East Aceh bring back this once-robust livelihood. A (truly) sustainable green farming approach that includes proper cultivation and organic fertilizer/integrated pest management will make cocoa—and these intrepid farmers—a force to be reckoned with.

Got Goat Milk?

One of our most successful projects is dairy goat breeding and fattening. Goat's milk and milk products are really nutritious. Most of our community partners' dairy products is sold outside of the villages in which they're produced, and you can't believe the joy I felt when I began to see folks drinking--and enjoying--their own goats' milk.